My dear Tom:—This letter will reach you after you have been at home a day; and you must leave home as soon as you receive it, to join my company. Our colonel is splendid,—grim and grizzled, and the nerve of a steam-engine. I told him about you, and said I wanted you as second lieutenant. He asked how much you knew; and I said, “Little enough, but more than any other of my vagabonds,—God bless them!” Then I told him about your study of Hardee; and he laughed, but asked me anxiously what you thought of Hardee. I forget what I said; but I know your opinion satisfied him perfectly; for he said that your youth was your greatest disqualification. Then I said that the rough set of my company needed the influence of an acknowledged gentleman, as well as the fellow-feeling and sympathy which that rough Murphy gives them. He agreed to that. Then he spoke of the value, in any rank of life, of a university education;—he hasn’t been through Harvard, you see;—and I agree with him. Then, when he heard who was your father, and who was your mother, he smiled, and said he believed in blood. I agreed again with him, and expressed the opinion that no one could get along very well without it. Moreover, I said, that, if you did not come as an officer, the whole company would become insubordinate; for you always had your own way with me; and it would not do for a private to control his captain. He laughed; but you are sure of your position, if you come on at once. We are not a swell regiment, Tom; but my sword-belt and sash are stunning, for all that. You must begin work at once. And, Tom, you must feel an interest in Murphy. It will do him good; and, through him, the men. He dined with me to-day, and made an attempt to eat with his fork instead of his knife, which was tolerably successful. He is a little uneasy about meeting you, being sensible of a certain lack of polish in his manner; but with you as the positive pole, and I as the negative, we shall have him duly magnetized in time.

I have been out to Cambridge, to see about destroying our old room; but I could not do it. I sat down and cried like a towel, or a sponge; I couldn’t help it. The goody had profited by your absence to leave everything out of order; for which I thanked her in my soul. The pictures that I hated, and the pictures that you didn’t like, hung on the walls; your dressing-gown was in your chair; the globe in which our departed goldfish once resided was still swinging at the window; and everything seemed like a dream of the past to me. Well, I should have been a brute if I hadn’t felt a little touched.

O Tom! you’ve forgotten to return “Roderick Random” to the library; and Sibley will come down on you for a nice lot of fines, see if he don’t.

But I was going to tell you about our room. Bob Lennox, who is rooming outside, you know, wants to come in as tenant during our absence, so that we can have everything just as it always has been, when we come back by next class-day; by which time, I am quite sure, the war will be ended; so I agreed to his proposition, subject to your objection, of course.

I thought, since your educational advantages impressed the colonel, that a copy of the last rank-list might work in your favor; but I decided, finally, that it would require too much explanation. In the same way I was thinking of getting you a certificate of moral character from Dr. Peabody, but was not sure that he had forgotten you sufficiently.

If you wish to secure your position, you must be here by Friday night. My love to the Professor, and sincere regards to your father and mother.

In haste, but, as ever, your friend,

Ned.

My dear old Ned:—Your letter was just like you, cross old devil that you are! I’m coming, old horse; so write my name down on your parchment immediately. The Professor starts this noon, and says he will wait over a train for me in Endeston, where he wants to make a visit this afternoon; so that I shall start to-morrow morning, and meet him there. Mother says it’s because he has so much delicacy of feeling that he doesn’t want to see our parting; and, by Jove! Ned, it’s going to be hard. She doesn’t say much; but I know how she suffers; and it makes me almost feel as though I was wrong to go. I’ll bet I’ll have a handsomer sash than you will, after all. Mother wants me to give you the enclosed letter, which seems mysterious to me; still I obey. I am in a great hurry, so can’t write any more, but shall be with you on Friday.

Yours,

Tom.

My dear Ned,—For though I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing you at our house, I still feel as though I knew you, Tom has said so much to me of you, and has shown so much more than he has said. I have felt very thankful that you were his friend; and now that this terrible and dreadful parting is to separate me from my only child, I am glad that you are to be with him. I know the cause that calls him, and I feel that it is better for him to go than to stay; but, though I say yes, I say it with an agony beyond your comprehension. I want your promise that you will not leave Tom during the time that your country may need you; that you will suffer nothing but death to separate you; that you will refuse promotion and honor, if it is to part you from him; that you will stay by his side in the progress of the battles that may come. It is through your influence that he goes; I must look to you for his safety. So make me this promise; and, in return, what can I give? what can I say? This only: that my house shall be your home; and that I shall feel as if I had two sons instead of one.